Roskelly: Two-Sport Speedster : Baseball: Valencia senior, who rushed for 29 touchdowns, hopes to improve on last year’s stolen base total of 26.

PLACENTIA â€”  One of the most terrifying sights for Orange League football coaches last season was watching Valencia High School tailback Ryan Roskelly blowing through their defenses.

And while Roskelly switches to baseball this spring, the reaction of league coaches remains the same.

Keep Roskelly off the basepaths or he--and his 4.6-second speed in the 40-yard dash--will torture your catcher.

Roskelly, a center fielder, won the admiration of league coaches with a fine junior season, when he finished 15th in Orange County in batting average (.447), and sixth in stolen bases (26). He was an all-league and a first-team all-Southern Section selection.

“Roskelly is the best guy back in our league, at least from what I saw last year,� Savanna Coach Hack Mitchell said. “Some guys come back from good junior years and nothing happens for them as a senior. But I don’t think that will happen with him.

“He has great speed and a decent arm. His arm isn’t a cannon, but he’ll throw some people out. And he can play the short game with his speed. He’s a threat to steal, and he goes from first to third on you pretty well.�

Mitchell’s not alone in his opinion.

“Ryan has speed to burn,� Western Coach Jeff Broussely said.

“Roskelly’s a heck of a player,� Magnolia Coach John Sharp said. “He can hit the ball and he has great speed.�

Roskelly merely shrugs when asked about his junior season. When asked about his base stealing, he’ll tell you about how he was thrown out three times by the same catcher in an American Legion game last summer.

“That was pretty bad,� he said.

He has set modest goals this season: a .400 average “would be fine� and 30 stolen bases is a reasonable goal.

Roskelly, 5 feet 11 and 175 pounds, compiled impressive statistics in football last season, rushing for nearly 1,200 yards and 29 touchdowns in leading the Tigers to the Southern Section Division VI championship.

Despite the statistics, college football scouts didn’t exactly flood Roskelly’s mailbox with recruiting letters.

“Football has always been my favorite sport, but I’m starting to like baseball more,� he said. “I’m hoping there’ll be something there for baseball, maybe a Division I school. If there isn’t, I’ll try to go to a smaller college and play both sports.�

Roskelly said he’s ready for baseball. He took part of the winter off after football season, then began baseball conditioning.

He played basketball as a freshman, but gave up the sport his sophomore year to prepare for baseball. He started the last eight baseball games of his sophomore season and hasn’t been out of the lineup since.

But Roskelly has yet to participate in a section baseball playoff game. He has played on consecutive 11-11 teams, missing the playoffs by one game last year.

“Our goal this year is to go to the Southern Section playoffs,� Roskelly said. “And we want to beat Magnolia for once. We’ve never beaten them in the three years since (Coach Mike) Scheetz has been here, and we always kid him about it.

“I think the league race is going to be a battle, but we’re going to be a lot better than we were last year.�